Separatist leader claims Eta is on verge of unilateral ceasefire

Hopes grew yesterday that the armed Basque separatist group Eta may be about to declare a truce after a prominent leader claimed the group was ready to give up violence and negotiate with Spain's incoming socialist government.

The comments by Arnaldo Otegi, of the banned Batasuna party, followed reports that Eta had been considering declaring a unilateral ceasefire that could start tomorrow to coincide with the annual celebrations of the Basque homeland day.

"Their latest statements, taking a clear position towards the new government of Spain to sit down and talk, point in that direction," he added.

Mr Otegi, who has appealed against a 15-month prison sentence handed down by a court last week for "praising terrorism", previously served a jail sentence for helping in an Eta kidnapping.

He is viewed by the Spanish government as an Eta frontman, though he denies any link with the group.

Eta's statements since the dramatic March 14 victory of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's socialists over the People's party of the outgoing prime minister José María Aznar have offered dialogue while also threatening continued violence.

"It is possible to achieve peace via reason and common sense," Eta said in a communique sent to a Basque newspaper a fortnight ago which also said the group would "keep fighting".

"The only communique I await from Eta, as do the vast majority of Spaniards, is one in which it abandons vio lence," replied Mr Zapatero, who is expected to take over as prime minister next week.

His government was thought unlikely to change the conservative People's party's policy of refusing to negotiate with Eta unless it first definitively abandons violence and gives up its arms.

The group, already at the weakest moment in its 35-year history, has suffered further major setbacks in the past 10 days, seeing two of its leaders captured and a major weapons cache and bomb factory discovered in south-western France.

Eta's last killing was 10 months ago and last year it killed three people, its lowest annual toll excluding previous years with temporary truces. It has killed some 850 people altogether since the late 60s.

More than 250 of its suspected members or collaborators have been arrested over the past two years, many of them by French police.

The March 11 train bombings by Islamist radicals in Madrid, which the government originally blamed on Eta, have also left the group looking relatively insignificant while hardening Spanish hearts against terrorism of any kind.

Those bombings killed 190 people and saw police switch some resources in the fight against terrorism away from Eta in order to concentrate on the armed Islamist threat.

But with Spain in a heightened state of alert against terrorism, Eta's chances of planting bombs or carrying out shootings have probably been reduced.

"It is possible to change the situation if there is political will," Mr Otegi said.

"We have to make the effort here and now, and we have to do it among ourselves."